It's a new year, which means that most of you will have resolutions like "lose 20 pounds" or "get fit" or "lose the flab." Fortunately, many fitness brands are using social media so that you can think about — and work toward — a healthy lifestyle, even when you're not in the weight room.

These brands are taking a multi-platform approach to helping fans get healthy and excited about fitness in a fun way. Mashable spoke to five brands — Equinox, Under Armour, Lululemon, Zumba and Crunch Gym — about their approach to social media and what makes them successful.

Consistently ranked one of the best gyms in America, Equinox kicks butt at social media, too. But the brand's aggressive strategy was whipped into shape just in the past year. Last January, Equinox had 22,000 Facebook Likes and 6,000 Twitter followers and a few YouTube videos. Then, Chief Marketing Officer Cie Nicholson came on board with Lisa D'Aromando and two editorial managers. The team "revamped the posting strategy, changing it from purely promotional to mainly content and conversations," says D'Aromando. Equinox's slogan is "It's not fitness ... it's life," and consequently, the conversation touches on fitness, yoga and health. The new strategy has helped the brand grow its following to 48,000 Likes and 13,000 followers, in addition to producing a healthy lifestyle blog called "Q" and maintaining a Foursquare account.

The brand hosts promotions on its social channels, but more for experiences than for sales and discounts, says D'Aromando. Its current Cycle for Survival promotion donates $1 for every new Like to benefit rare cancer research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. "This helps to build our community as well as stimulate conversations about Cycle for Survival and increase donations to the cause," she says.

Twitter, naturally, is more conversational, and D'Aromando says the audience is more of a mix of members and non-members than the Facebook Page. The handle is responding to questions, posting news, blasting blog content and questions to its followers throughout the day. And it's an engaged audience — on the brand's 20th anniversary last year, the hashtag #Happy20thEquinox received more than 26 million impressions in one day.

Equinox is on Foursquare, too, but instead of offering discounts or freebies, the brand offers upgrades for checking in at the spa. The brand also ran a flash special in NYC for the 20th anniversary, giving away Equinox gift cards to the first 20 people who checked in at the party.

But perhaps the crown jewel of Equinox's social efforts is Q Blog. "Without good content, there’s not much to talk about — we now have outstanding content created internally," says D'Aromando, who works with the Q editors to promote content and develop strategy. They also take tips from followers — the Q tab on the Facebook Page lets fans submit questions to the advisory board, the answers to which become articles on Q.

One byproduct of Q is that it's increased Equinox's presence on YouTube, and it's an area ripe for even more expansion in 2012. And these aren't record-on-your-iPhone-and-upload-to-YouTube clips — these are well done, beautifully produced videos, like the "NSFW" yoga one above. To get even more distribution, Equinox is running the videos on StumbleUpon, which has increased traffic and helped the brand cast a wider net. Q is complemented by a weekly newsletter and a monthly email to keep healthy living — and Equinox — top of mind.

Under Armour purveys innovative clothes that keep athletes — or just your average gym-goer — comfortable, whether it warms them, cools them or wicks the sweat right off of them. The brand was started by a University of Maryland football player and has earned the trust of professional athletes, like Tom Brady, college footballers and high school teams alike.

"Our goal overall — when I got here a year ago — was to look at growing the audience and making sure we’re getting the right audience, which is 12- to 24-year-olds," says Digital Media Director Dan Mecchi. To do so, "we activate our athletes — Michael Phelps, Lindsey Vonn — around our teams, whether they’re high school, college or the Ravens or Patriots." Mecchi says this approach gets people involved with Under Armour in a cost-effective way.

On social media, the mission "isn't just to start the conversation" — the fans are asked to participate in the brand. "It’s about fan activation in our mind," Mecchi says. One such activation is the Ultimate Intern program, a social play that asked students to submit a cover letter of 140 characters explaining how they'd "ignite" the brand. There were thousands of applications, 10 finalists were interviewed via Skype, and ultimately, two college students were chosen to be Under Armour social media specialists for five weeks, cultivating the Under Armour fan base and live-tweeting events, such as the MLB All-Star game.

The Under Armour Facebook Page hosts contests, like Fighting Undeniable (above), for which high school teams vied for $140,000 of Under Armour team gear. Mainland Regional High School in New Jersey won, with more than 20,000 votes. The high school lost four football players in a car accident in August, so this Fighting Undeniable "was a huge event for the school to rally around," an Under Armour rep says, adding that Mainland had its first pep rally in 11 years to celebrate. Now that's a meaningful brand engagement.

"I'm an old guy, so it’s not my brand, it’s their brand," says Mecchi, of the target consumer. "It's about empowering them ... they carry the banner for us, so we should give them the tools and contests that are interesting and motivating, which is what the Undeniable program is all about." More than 1,000 schools registered, and students sent in videos and images and voted for the winning school. There was a Facebook Page set up specifically for the Fighting Undeniable promotion, which saw 2.5 million visits. While that's a lot of engagement, Mechhi emphasizes that the actual activation didn't even cost much — the campaign was driven by the team's passion and love of the game.

The company's YouTube page has more than 100 videos that have garnered more than 2.4 million views. The videos feature Under Armour athletes breaking a sweat, and they make you want to turn off the computer and get in the game. Inspiring people to take it to the next level is what Under Armour is all about, and its social media campaign is geared toward that goal, too.

"We’re a video-centric company," says Mecchi. "We love TV, our guys make some of the world's best creative, but it's not just about that 30- or 60-second spot anymore." With YouTube, there's no time limit, no pricey air time and the message is more easily amplified.

"We’re the brand for the next generation, and we don’t ignore the older crowd, but we really want to focus on 12- to 24-year-old athletes and active kids who want to get on the varsity football team, the 16-year-old who wants to play D1 volleyball." And since this demo is all over social media, so too is Under Armour.

The Canadian yoga brand is more than a place for apparel and workout gear — it's a haven for a healthy, happy lifestyle, and that's evident across its social platforms. "Our goal with all of our social media channels is to inspire, engage and challenge," says Lesia Dallimore, the "cupcake boss" of digital marketing at Lululemon. "It's about relationship-building for us, just like we do in our brick-and-mortar stores. It's also about creating a hub for health that's more than just our products." And so, Lululemon maintains a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Instagramand content-curation platform Zite.

On Facebook and Twitter, Lululemon shares health and fitness tips, of course, but it also shares quotes and life inspirations. Each Lululemon location has its own Facebook Page, which is transformed into a bulletin board for that local community and helps the brand connect on a more intimate and local level. (Note, there are physical bulletin boards within the stores, too, so it's literally a digital counterpart.) Facebook Pages broadcast information about events, new products and the ambassadors, who are "rock star instructors and atheletes" within the store communities. "It's really the same conversations we're having in our stores with our guests every day, extended to the social space," says Dallimore. And yet, despite fragmenting its fan base by location, the brand page still has a hearty 453,000 fans. The brand page responds to customer needs or requests, offers sneak peeks into the brand's culture, community and products, and posts albums featuring Lululemon gear and insights into the ambassadors' lives.

The brand's Foursquare Page leaves tips for healthy lifestyle in communities near Lululemon shops — a farmer's market outside of one New York location and a yoga studio in Vancouver, near the company's headquarters. These tips turn Lululemon into not a shopping destination, but a way of life for its male and female customers, thus building loyalty and increasing engagement.

Twitter is a communication hub — it's where Lululemon focuses on inspiring yogis and sharing community initiatives. You'll find interesting articles, fitness and goal-setting tips and a heck of a lot of customer service, as fans describe items they can't find in-store. "Try @-replying to us — we'll always answer," says Dallimore.

The brand uses YouTube to give a deeper look into the yoga culture, the Lululemon community and the products. Video topics run the gamut from inspiring yoga videos to product explanations to self-mocking humor, like the above video, Sh*t Yogis Say. This YouTube content is shared across all social channels for maximum reach.

A new venture is Zite, for which Lululemon is the first brand partner. Lululemon's channel is trained to serve up content for health and fitness nuts, and the more you consume, the more tailored your content will be. "It's a place where we're inspired to be healthier," says Dallimore.

And like many brands, Lululemon has embraced the visual platforms Instagram and Tumblr. You'll find yoga poses, pictures of yoga classes, snaps of the Vancouver headquarters and life mantras. And Tumblr is the home of #OHIY — overheard in yoga — as well as recaps of events, yoga poses and store pictures.

Lululemon excels at digital, but it's also done a solid job bridging the online and offline worlds — on top of all of the social platforms, there's also a community ambassador program uses both digital tools as well as in-person events to cultivate a connection between consumers, the brand and a healthy, happy lifestyle.

Any exercise class that has a dash of Britney Spears, a splash of Aretha Franklin and some Latin-inspired J.Lo beats is going to be good, and the music is partially why the Zumba fitness program has such a growing fan base. The other reason is that people are shedding some serious weight by "partying into shape" (the company's slogan).

"Our overall strategy is to build community, and we do that both online and offline," says CMO Jeffrey Perlman. The brand hosts hundreds of events every year, and social media tools are used social media as the tool to spread the word. And that's on top of the classes — more than 12 million Zumba enthusiasts take classes each week in more than 110,000 locations across 125 countries, says Perlman. The average Zumba fan is 33 years old, and the audience is 70% female — a recipe for social success for Facebook, since 62% of Facebook pageviews are driven by women.

The Zumba Facebook Page launched just last year, and it currently has 2.6 million fans. And these fans are engaged. Posts tend to get thousands of likes and more than a hundred comments, and this high level of activity has swayed the Zumba team to put more emphasis on Facebook than Twitter. "We're constantly having a two-way conversation with our community," says Perlman. And the conversation often involves multimedia. When musician Pitbull releases a new song recently, the Zumba brand created a music video for it that was half-done. It was posted to Facebook, with a teaser asking fans to complete the video. Perlman says there were thousands of videos submitted through a Facebook app for the promotion, and there was a vote for the best video.

And Zumba has also ventured into the world of content creation. Its ZLife magazine subscription offers content about nutrition, fitness, beauty and music, in addition to contests, like one that offered Zumba gear if you say what kind of music makes you want to boogie. The digital magazine has 100,000 subscribers, and Perlman says it's a great way to access Zumba's global audience. "It's all part of social media," he adds.

Not surprisingly, another gym brand made it on the list of top fitness brands in social media: Crunch.

"We see social media platforms as a place and an opportunity to engage with our members and continue the conversation outside of the gym walls ... and to echo our brand voice and drive new lead and member acquisition through our most loyal and vocal fans," says Alexis Kendall, Crunch’s director of media and strategy. The brand's social media following is mostly comprised of members and employees who are already engaging with the brand on a regular basis, she adds.

Kendall says Crunch was one of the first brands to explore Foursquare as a marketing tool, and it has 17,500 followers to show for it. One longstanding checkin special offers a one-week pass, which Kendall says has brought in a "good amount of regular guest traffic." Once they get those endorphins going, there's a good chance Crunch has a new member in its hands. And there's a mayor special — Crunch mayors receive free bottled water when they hit the gym. The brand has 93 Foursquare tips in New York City, ranging from healthy eating advice at movie theaters, restaurants and airports, to suggesting that you take the stairs at Grand Central Station to burn some extra calories. The gym also integrated Foursquare into its free iOS and Android mobile app, which allows members to check in, see location and class information, redeem specials and stay connected with the Crunch community, all while on the go.

Because there are so many branches of Crunch, the company uses the parent-child model on Facebook, allowing individual clubs to post local information while maintaining the overall Crunch main brand messaging on the parent page. Facebook apps house key information, such as locations and class times, guest passes and integrated marketing campaigns like the Gymspirations contest, for which members and trainers shared their success stories.

Last October, Crunch ran a Check-In for Charity campaign that donated $1 to PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center for each checkin to Crunch on Facebook. There were 12,573 check-ins during that campaign, which represented an increase of 200%. During the month — possibly due to Crunch checkins floating around on Facebook — Crunch acquired 1,431 new Facebook fans, 5,822,148 media impressions and nearly 17,000 checkins, clicks and Likes, says Kendall.

Twitter is also used as a communication mechanism, and it's spices up with the occasional "lead generation tactic," like offering guest passes so members can bring a friend. Crunch piggybacks on trending topics to give away guest passes an Crunch swag — on Michael Jackson's birthday, Crunch used #kingofpop to ask fans to tell their favorite MJ dance move to win a free month of membership at Crunch.

What other fitness brands rock social media? Let is know in the comments below.

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